I am new to virtualization software and have a question that can make or break my purchase of unraid basic. Now if I have a windows 7 home [OEM] machine with an m5a78l-usb3 motherboard and the key is linked what would installing unraid to the machine,  then virtualizing windows through unraid impact. For instance, will windows see that the key is on a different motherboard and will not be activated? Can I make unraid pretend it is the exact make of this motherboard to trick windows? Am I able to conatct microsoft and tell them to switch my key over to the virtualized unraid? If this is successful if I update unraid will the virtualized motherboard change and will I have to go through the process again and/or buy an entirely new key? I'm aware that I could buy a retail key but if I can use my oem key that I own right now than I would like to do that at any possibility.

Was this a OEM PC like Acer or eMachines? If so then its a gamble. If you purchased the windows 7 from one of the various suppliers it should work ok.

 

I've used the same win7 on 3 different machines (but not at the same time).

I custom built the machine my self with the motherboard I entailed however I used Windows 7 home oem to save money compared to retail. I got the key from Microsoft via Amazon

Tough to say... it is just a VM afterall so is there harm in trying? Save your current windows OS drive in case you need to go back.

Valid point in that if it doesn't work then it will just stay linked to my motherboard and I can just revert back to windows without unraid. I will install unraid and post my results with hopefully a solved thread.

Just wanted to close this thread off, I installed windows 10 on a vm and I shoved my windows 7 key since it was a upgrade into it and it worked like a charm.